I continue to fully support Slote and the vital work of the Arizona SPCA, whose dedicated volunteers tirelessly rescue sick and injured animals. I can readily attest to the integrity of Slote and her organization, which is genuinely dedicated to serving animals and their welfare.

I charge that Scooter's owner was grossly negligent in callously failing to obtain immediate and proper medical treatment for her ill pet. Those who truly love animals do not want them to suffer; they strive at all times to spare the animals psychological and physical trauma, even if humane euthanasia is the only way to end their misery. Humans receive care when they are terminally ill. Animals deserve equal consideration.

Donna Worthington
Mesa

Right Guard
After reading M. V. Moorhead's shameful, unsophisticated movie critique of The Last Supper ("Dine Hard," April 25), I feel obligated to condemn this hypocritical magazine in a public forum.

Moorhead writes, "I can't think of a nobler purpose to which right-wing extremists can be put than fertilizing tomatoes." Here Moorhead directly states that viewpoints too far to the right are worthless. And, indirectly, he implies that we should rid our planet of people who belong to its right-wing sector. But how, exactly, should we negotiate their expiration? By killing them? By educating or reforming them? To nobody's surprise, Moorhead doesn't say, so I can only speculate as to what the writer meant: "Would someone please hurry up and murder these immoral, right-wing Neanderthals?" Moorhead obviously believes that it matters not how we shed our country of its right-wing thinkers, so long as we make it happen. Even if we have to see blood shed, eh?

Well, I've got news for Moorhead: We will solve the world's problems not through spiteful, divisive politics, but through a grassroots, nonpartisan display of love. It is a movement that requires tolerance--a commitment to migrate toward the political center. And it applies as much to New Times' liberal staff as it does to Rush Limbaugh and his frightening army of right-wing fascists. Try viewing the world through practical, logical, moderate eyes, and I guarantee that peace will manifest itself through the actions and language of our country's wonderfully diverse citizenship.

New Times is politically polar to Limbaugh, but in my opinion, both occupy the same criminal fringe. Therefore, I begin the search for a new entertainment magazine . . . one that won't waste column space with angry, "un-noble" rhetoric.

Jeffrey Perrine
Phoenix

Editor's note: M. V. Moorhead made one overriding point repeatedly in his review of The Last Supper: The film paints a hypernegative, cartoonish portrait of the right, undercutting the picture's own attempts at satire. That you could have missed this point so completely, Mr. Perrine, indicates that you really should move on to less sophisticated reading material. May I suggest Reader's Digest or the Arizona Republic?

By the way, my staff is about as liberal as a shark with a hangover.

Government for the People
I would like to commend New Times for its continued exposure of corporate tyranny (e.g., "Parking Mirage," John Dougherty, April 25; "From Dust to . . . Golf?" Terry Greene, March 21, etc.). It is seldom that ordinary citizens take action on what they read, yet it is still important to publish these stories in hopes that someday they will.

Noam Chomsky recently wrote that the current mood of antipolitics has been carefully cultivated by corporate tyrants to distract us from what they're doing, and to get us to fear the one thing that might protect us from their depredations of private power--the federal government. Phelps Dodge cannot be influenced by the general public except through very indirect means, such as regulatory mechanisms which are weak and controlled largely by them and the government officials and lobbyists they choose as bedfellows. Phelps Dodge's decisions have a profound effect on us, yet we really have no say in them. And neither can we rely on the courts when wealth for the few becomes a substitute for justice. Greyhound is bought off by Jerry Colangelo's buddies like everyone else who serves the almighty dollar.

I have nothing against a clean, fair fight. Adversity helps us grow. But when one team is clearly disadvantaged by lack of funds, then the playing field is not level. Just because we don't always sense oppression by corporate tyrants doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The first step in abolishing tyranny of any kind is to refuse to bow down to it.